There’s no doubt that social media is THE most important channel to keep in mind when it comes to building a brand or marketing products.  But when you’re thinking about the role social media plays in the success of your business, do you know what you should be measuring?  Often times, start ups, small businesses, and individuals are constantly obsessing about gaining as many followers as possible.  When I tell people I’m a marketer, I often get questions like:

• ·       “Can you help me get more followers?”

• ·       “I have 10k followers, do you know how I could get more to make more money?”

Every time this happens, I try my very hardest to avoid rolling my eyes, take a deep breath, and try to divert the conversation.

I will say this one time very clearly for the folks in the back:

I DON’T CARE HOW MANY FOLLOWERS YOU HAVE; AND NO, I WILL NOT FOCUS ON SIMPLY GETTING YOU AS MANY FOLLOWERS AS POSSIBLE.

Now…let me clarify what I mean when I say this.  I am by no means diminishing the value of the audience you have likely carefully built over time (I am diminishing the value of an audience you built by buying cheap/fake followers).  I’m also not implying that having a large audience isn’t valuable at all.  In order to really make the most of social media, there’s so much more you NEED to pay attention to and measure.

Do you know who your followers are (or should be)?

When your building a social media audience and using social media to sell anything, you’ve got to understand who your target customer is. For example: if you are selling a luxury dog bed, having millions of tropical bird enthusiasts for followers probably isn’t going to do you much good. Focus your efforts on attracting the followers who are dog owners with expensive taste and an income level to match, post content that’s going to make THEM feel their fur baby needs that luxurious bed!

Maybe you think you’re attracting all the right followers, but they still aren’t buying.  I’d say you need to take another look at who ARE your top buyers.  Sometimes the customer you THINK you want is not necessarily the one who wants what you have.

Do your followers actually take actions?

Another thing for the folks in the back:

IF NONE OF YOUR FOLLOWERS ARE SPENDING MONEY, THEY’RE WORTHLESS.

Of course, this is a little bit exaggerated because brand awareness and word of mouth marketing are incredibly important.  But if you have thousands and thousands of followers and you’re desperately searching for revenue, something’s wrong.

Followers not actually making purchases is typically the result of a few things:

• ·       You’re not giving them the content they need to make a decision

• ·       They aren’t the right target consumer

• ·       You don’t have the right product yet

Not selling a product? Cool.  Then you should be making sure that your followers are engaging with you in a natural way.  Pay attention to comments, likes, shares, etc. to make sure that you’re not wasting energy on content that isn’t building an audience that’s really engaged.

If you’re not measuring your social media marketing success by more than just your follower count, you’re cheating yourself, wasting your time, and missing out on profit.  Social media marketing can not be an “afterthought”, it must be treated like the complex and powerful channel that it is.  Don’t just gain followers for the sake of having them, make sure they are helping you reach your end goals.